On Saturday 29 July, the CPGB-ML held a seminar in London on trade unionism and working-class leadership, with particular reference to the aspects of the question that are dealt with in our new pamphlet: Manifesto for the Crisis: Class Against Class.
Comrade Alexander Mckay (of Red Star Radio, the Marx Engels Lenin Institute and the Class Consciousness Project) made an invaluable contribution to the meeting, looking at why and how the so-called ‘left’, ‘radical’ wing of the trade union movement in Britain, in particular those reps and officials aligned with the Socialist party (SPEW), the Socialist Workers party (SWP) and the Communist Party of Britain (CPB), despite all their left-sounding rhetoric, all end up acting as policemen to for the imperialist-aligned TUC bureaucrats and Labour party apparatus – even while claiming that their presence in these committees of control is proof of their ‘deep and organic connection’ to the working class.
Why is it that the current wave of strikes and pay disputes is being sold out by the union leaderships, despite mass support from workers and the public for meaningful action to restore heavily-eroded pay packets and destroyed public services? What role does the trade union movement’s connection with the Labour party play? What role do the so-called ‘radicals’ play in controlling working-class anger? And what should we be doing about it?
Alex covers these questions and more, speaking from a position of experience as a rep himself for many years and from the perspective of a serious student of Marxism.
Highly recommended viewing.
